God has Answers Before the Questions Are Even Asked – Understanding What God Didn’t Make

Pastor Michael Wise

Every suicide is a tragedy, every one is a precious soul who gave up the battle for life rather than choosing to continue.

According to this CNN article, https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/health/suicide-report-cdc/index.html, research published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that, since 1999, suicide rates across the United States increased more than 25% over nearly two decades, ending in 2016.In 2016 alone, about 45,000 lives were lost to suicide.

Depression and suicide seem to continue escalating. There are many reasons people lose hope, or even chose to give up on life.  This is so sad to me, particularly when God gives us so many promises and reasons to build and maintain our hope.

In 1 John 1:4, John said the reason he wrote to us about Jesus Christ was so we could have full, complete joy in our hearts

“And these things we write to you that your joy may be full”

In John 10:10, Jesus said He came so we could have an abundant life,

“I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly”

Even when faced with trials and temptations our lives can be joy-filled and abundant, and I believe what Scripture teaches!

But may I ask you, whether you are a Christian or not, is your heart filled with joy, are you living an abundant life in spite of life’s trials? Or does your life leave you with mounting sadness and unanswered questions?

I was walking home from my seminary classes one day. Our apartment was connected to our landlord’s home (garage actually). When I got to the edge of the driveway my landlord’s wife met me. They were a sweet, kind elderly Christian couple, but at that moment she was in tears. Her husband, who was slowly developing Alzheimer’s symptoms, had absent-mindedly unplugged their chest freezer several days earlier. She had discovered everything was thawed and spoiling. Through her tears she asked, “Why did it happen to me, I’m a Christian?”.

How often is that our first thought when trials and tragedies strike – “Why me, I’m a Christian?”

The Good News for us is that God gave answers before we even have the question!

Genesis, is called the book of beginnings, the book of origins. I trust you’re familiar with the creation story of Genesis1.

When God had finished His work of creating this world, He said (vs 31) that it was very good. Today we often substitute the word “perfect”. What God had made was perfect!

But are you aware of the “non-creation story” in Genesis 2? And why God would even bother to tell us what He didn’t create? Of course, everything written and recorded in the Bible is there for a purpose; but truth, and learning it, is progressive. It takes time, study, and grace. Chapter 2 is not part of a “gap theory”, of a “second creation”. No, it’s a continuation of the creation story of chapter 1. Chapter 2 reveals the establishment of God’s Holy Sabbath on the seventh day. But before it tells more of what God made, the garden of Eden, and the roles He gave to Adam and Eve, it contains what God didn’t make in 3 short verses.

Prior to the Bible being written, God’s people had what is referred to as “oral tradition”. That simply means that the stories of God, His truth, and the plan He had for His creation was passed on from generation to generation orally or verbally.

Through this oral sharing of truth, the descendants of the 12 tribes of Jacob had some knowledge of their identity. They were the children of Israel. They knew they were also the descendants of Isaac, and father Abraham. They knew they were chosen to be God’s people, the recipients of His’ promises.

But their condition didn’t look or feel very promising. They were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. I have no doubts that they must have had many questions pertaining to their situation.

ButGod Has Answers Before We Have Questions. Genesis, along with the rest of the Bible, was written to answer our questions and provide us with a hope filled, and filling, truth. Especially when we are tempted to say “Why me Lord”, or “Why this Lord?”

God’s answers were written down, to give Israel hope building answers, and to do the same for us as well.

I agree with those scholars, historians, and writers, who say Moses is the writer of the first five books of the Bible. In the bookPatriarchs and Prophets, p 251.1,the author also says Genesis was written by Moses.

When Moses fled from Egypt, he fled to the Midian desert. While in the deserts of Midian for 40 years, he tended sheep, encountered and learned about God, and wrote Genesis. Meanwhile, the Israelites remained in Egyptian bondage and hardship.

In addition to the physical and mental brutality, there was also the spiritual. Slavery in a pagan nation would have dulled their sense of the true God, and their understanding of His truth. God wanted their relationship with Him restored. He wanted to clear up any “blurriness” they had of their’, and mankind’s, beginnings; how good it started out… and how good it will ultimately end.

Genesis 47:5-7 says“Then Pharaoh spoke to Joseph, saying, … ⁶“The land of Egypt is before you. Have your father and brothers dwell in the best of the land; let them dwell in the land of Goshen. And if you know any competent men among them, then make them chief herdsmen over my livestock.” ⁷ Then Joseph brought in his father Jacob and set him before Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh”

They were given the choicest of the land in Egypt to live. They were given the job of “royal herdsman” for Pharaoh. Pharaoh received Israel’s blessings!  Most importantly,the children of Israel knew the blessings God had promised to them through Abraham (Genesis 22:17). Exodus 1:7tells us the family of Israel grew large and prosperous….

But in Exodus 1:8,10-14we learn that circumstances changed. Pharoah’s view of them changed from “royal guests” to “royal pests”.

They lost their possessions, their wealth, their occupations, and were made slaves. Digging irrigation ditches and building buildings were now their lot.

Annual flooding of the Nile river required extreme watchfulness to prevent the loss of life, crops, and property. We make think rain is a blessing, but ask a farmer. Rain isn’t always reliable. Too much results in flooding, too little produces draughts, even the right amount still needs to be at the right time to be beneficial.

Irrigation can help. But year round cultivation would have required an extensive system of irrigation, requiring constant labor and attention.

I read how in the Mid 19th century, Mehemet Ali built his Alexandrian canal. Even then, 20,000 of the 150,000 laborers died due to the harsh conditions.

Under the hot Egyptian sun from sun up to sun down no end in sight they dug, the Israelite slaves were forced to work rigorously digging ditches, and building cities (Exodus 1:11-14):

But that wasn’t the worst part. What was, was watching helplessly as an entire generation of their sons were eliminated. Exodus 1:22 says “So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river”

Parents could do little but watch in sorrow as their newborn sons, their pride, their joy, and their future, were ripped from their arms and mercilessly thrown into the dark waters. I probably don’t need to mention what lurked in the waters of the nile.

Oh, how they must have wept in despair. Exodus 2:23 says,“Now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage”

I wonder, do you think they asked God, “Why did this happen to me, I’m an Israelite, I’m a son/daughter of Abraham?”

God has a heart of compassion. He has answers before we even have questions. He heard their cries. Exodus 2:24says, “So God heardtheir groaning, and God remembered His covenant…”

You see friend, God has answers before we even speak the questions that perplex the soul. He didn’t forget, He was simply waiting for them to ask, and to seek Him. How many trials must we face before we are ready to seek God, to turn to Him with the burdens of the souls, the questions of the heart?

Under inspiration of the Holy Spirit,Moses wrote…  He wrote God’s answersto their heart questions, and ours.

In 3 small verses,Genesis 2:4-6 reveals 4 things God didn’t create (see also Genesis 3:15-19).

1) Plant of the field – the Hebrew word is siyach saday {see’-akh saw-dah’-ee}, this describes the thorny plants. The plants they would have encountered in their daily toil. Plants that added to their misery.

I remember a warm summer day when I was a small child visiting at my grandmothers, our next door neighbor. I was “swinging” on the screen door, one sweaty little hand on the inside door handle and one on the outside. At least I was until I lost me grip and fell off this “porch swing” into a patch of nettles. I was wearing only my diapers. My cries brought my grandmother’s attention and a rubbing alcohol “bath” to ease the sting. Many of you have probably encountered stinging nettles, stepped on “prickers”, or been poked by thorns. God was revealing to Israel, and us, that He didn’t create them.

2) Herb of the field – the Hebrew word is `eseb {eh’seb saw-dah’-ee} – the annual vegetables they had to continuously plant year after year, harvest after harvest.

I enjoy most vegetables, but if you have gardened, you know it is hard work. I doubt any of us have had to do it as a slave, and in the manner the Israelites were forced to do.

3) Rain:  I like rain and thunderstorms; but not flooding or death. Too much rain leads to floods and the destruction they cause. Too little rain leads to drought. Even the right amount at the wrong time can lead to famines.

God had created a natural underground sprinkler system, a mist that watered the .

Many folks, who can afford it, prefer to install underground sprinkling in their yards. Many farmers install irrigation systems in their fields. God had already taken care of this for mankind at creation.

4) A man to till/work the soil by the sweat of his brow

God never intended for men or women to be slaves or to be worked into an early grave. 

In Genesis 2:6-9, God tells them what He did create.

He made a “Gan”, that’s the Hebrew word.  It means He made a garden/orchard/vineyard complete with producing trees and vines. Mankind was given the pleasant role of tending to it and keeping it.

This Hebrew word, “gan”, only shows up one other time in Scripture.

1 Kings 21says King Ahab killed Naboth for his “Gan” – his garden/orchard/vineyard. That’s how valuable, or precious they were.

Oh, the Israelites must have certainly been able to relate to the present existence of these 4 things God didn’t create. But if God didn’t make them, what happened, how did they come into existence?

I’m so glad God didn’t end the explanation right there. He could have finished the story with the explanation of how mankind’s choices, manipulated be Satan, were the cause of grief and heartache. No one would have been able to argue with those facts. The pain and turmoil they experienced, and we still experience, was/is the result of Satan influencing bad human choices. God can not be rightly blamed.

But to end the story there would reflect a cold heart, and God is certainly not cold-hearted. The Bible says God IS love!

So where did suffering come from?

Genesis 3 presents the adversary, Satan, working through a serpent. Jesus would use a parable to further explain in Matthew 13:27-28. It says,”So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’  ²⁸“He said to them, ‘An enemyhas done this’

Peter wrote in1 Peter 5:8  “your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour”

Jesus, and Peter clearly place the blame on Satan. He is our enemy, not God. You can read more about Satan’s origins; how Lucifer became Satan in Isaiah 14and Ezekiel 28. God did not create the devil.

In the book “Daughters of God, p 224.1, the author writes,

“The Lord looks upon our afflictions. He graciously and discriminately metes them out and apportions them. As a refiner of silver He watches us every moment until the purification is complete. The furnace is to purify and refine, not to destroy and consume.”

Immediately after the fall, God reveals His plan for mankind’s redemption.

Genesis 3:15 contains the new covenant promise. It reveals the Promised Seed who would deliver us. It says “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

Galatians 3:16helps us understand that Jesus Christ is the Seed.

If you stomp on the head of a viper you crush it, and kill the viper. But if the viper bites you in this process, you both die. The new covenant is promised. Jesus Christ, the Messiah would conquer sin and Satan through His own death. Grace would be made possible for all. The Old Testament looked forward in faith to Christ’s sacrifice; the New Testament looks back in faith. But looking either direction required faith. It is by grace, through faith, that we are saved. It is God’s gift, not our works (Ephesians 2:8-9).

So what does this mean for us to day?  What is the application?

People approach the Bible in various ways. To some it is simply a literary classis, to others a great history book. Still to others, it’s a rule book. While it is a literary classis, a history book containing the rules for righteous living, it is so much more! Jesus said in John 5:39“ You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.”

The greatest purpose of Scripture, the reason the Holy Spirit inspired Moses, and all of Scripture’s writers, with the messages they wrote was to reveal Jesus to us. And by revealing Jesus Christ, it would also reveal the loving Father. Whether God the Holy Spirit, God the Son, or God the Father, they are equally God in status and have the same character of love, truth, and compassion. The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) is a revelation of God’s character. In addition, the triune Godhead has a common goal, our redemption, even if they have different roles.

Dear reader friend, May I ask, how do you approach the Bible? What is your purpose in reading or studying it?

Whether your reading Old Testament or New Testament books of the Bible, are you looking for what it reveals about Jesus with your whole heart? In Him you will find the answers to the questions and burdens you carry!

I was not raised in a Christian home. And though God provided Christian influences around me I did not pursue Him. There was a time in early adulthood when I was so angry at life and God that on my ride home from work, through some of the busiest streets of Grand Rapids, I took my hands off my motorcycles’ handle bars while driving through red lights challenging God to “take me out” if He dared, if He was “big enough”. I’m so glad God is merciful and patient with the foolish. In time, I decided to search for God with my whole heart. And as I did He revealed Himself to me. I’m so glad the journey will never end. Yes new questions arise, along with new trials, but the relationship simply becomes sweeter AS time is devoted to learn of Him.

One of my favorite passages is Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  ¹²Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.  ¹³And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart”

Dear friend, may I appeal to you today, as you read this, God has answers for your questions. He has an abundant life for you. Will you search for him with your whole heart? Will you learn and choose to trust Him?

You can learn to trust Him by spending time in your Bible, daily is best. Yes you may experience that some of your questions may need others to be answered first – learning is progressive – but you will find God provided answers before we even had the questions

My prayer

Lord, bless us as we bring our questions and burdens to you. Grant us Your grace so that as we seek You with our whole heart, we will find hope in Jesus. Amen.